Ricoh Aficio GX 2500 in Printers

The only replaceable part in the Ricoh machine, aside from the cartridges, is the ink collection unit at the rear of the printer. It's only used when the print heads are cleaned and has a quoted yield of 16,000 pages - so the £39 replacement goes a very long way.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the Ricoh, at £99, is far cheaper to buy than most lasers, which range in price from £179 to £317. In fact the GX 2500's running costs are very economical indeed - on a par with the most economical of lasers. Amazingly, at this price you also get an automatic duplexer for two-sided printing.

So it's a relatively sound economic purchase, but despite that, we can't really recommend the GX 2500 unless monetary factors outweigh all others. The highest quality settings are the only ones we'd be happy using - draft and normal settings are too inconsistent - and these are much slower than a laser. Conversely, photo quality, while quick, can't match the best inkjets' vibrant colours and crisp, sharp detail.

In short, the GX 2500 sits in a rather awkward position. It's an inkjet that wants to be a laser printer; however as a result of the proprietary gel-based inks, it fails to match either format's key strengths.

Author: Mike Jennings